Watch the Ebb and Flow of Melbourne Trains

Similar to other visualizations showing location (e.g. Cabspotting, Britain From Above), this one from Australia-based data visualization group, Flink Labs, shows the ebb and flow of Melbourne trains over the course of a single weekday using the Melbourne train schedule as the data.

Inspired by the foraging of ants and their pheromone trails, this visualisation provides the viewer with a satellite-like view of the entire train network over an accelerated timeframe. The visualisation exposes the ebbs and flows of the system along with a surprising level of complexity, not obvious to the the viewer at a single point in time or at the scale of a individual train.

As you might expect, things start out slow in the morning and then peak during commuting times. Watch the animation below: